Back From the Great (and Crowded) Outdoors

And let me just say after a week in the wilds of Yosemite, it’s as crowded there as in the big city, as you can read in this disturbing story from the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend on the traffic jam to reach the summit of the famous and breathtaking Half Dome. As you can see by this stunning photo by Michael Maloney, getting away from it all is a bit harder than it seems and a whole lot more dangerous (there have been a few recent and obviously fatal falls on the cables going up the last stretch of the climb).

Wimp that I thankfully am, I did not try this trek and stuck to clambering over the slippery rocks under picturesque waterfalls, even as I desperately tried to catch an errant wireless signal.

Mostly, it was to no avail, and I thank the comment on my whiny post on my journey to the land of beauty and no-digital-connection that pointed out where I could jack in.

Indeed, I did manage to sign on at the lovely and historic Ahwahnee hotel there, where my family stayed for two nights after too much dust-choked and mosquito-plagued rustic cabin camping.

But, to assuage another commenter who wished I would learn to commune with nature more and my computer less, I did have a killer view of Half Dome as I microprocessed from a very comfy chair about one foot off the ground.